Adventures in food, travel, and backcountry kitchens

adirondacks

Souzz and I generally prefer to be guide-less on our outdoor adventures. And by that I mean that we like to try to do things on our own, at the mercy of our own skills and decision-making (and sometimes at the mercy of our own mistakes). That approach has worked very well in whitewater, pretty well in the backcountry, and mostly well on technical rock climbs. It hasn’t worked as well around the breakfast table, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Souzz and me

KB keeping us safe

With my brother Tim

ok, so it’s not ice, but it is my mom showing us where we got it from

As for our guide-less adventure limits, putting our skill on ice has long been a mismatch. So we rope up with a professional guide when we climb ice. And for the past 25+ years, our outfitter of choice has beenAdirondack Rock and Riverin Keene, New York. They opened for business in 1988, and climbing with those guys has always felt like visiting old friends (assuming, of course, that your old friends can safely lead you up frozen waterfalls).

Rock and River

lots of tools at Rock and River

A little climbing history

Gear

The main dining room

Eric Heiden won five gold medals here in 1980

fires indoors and out

nearby Placid

1980 Olympic Torch in Placid

Souzz doing an Olympic pose (albeit with beater rental skis)

Our hotel (ok, not really)

After a day of xc skiing

The guides at Rock and River—experts like Ed, Matt, Don, Chad, Bill, and Mark–are highly skilled in their craft. And they are also interesting people, as quick with a story or a quip as they are with a taut rope. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve seen one of them shivering on a stance chirping out encouragement while waiting for an out-of-shape client to finish a pitch. Sometimes I’ve seen that dynamic up close, like real close.

Matt

Don

Matt and Souzz

Our most recent trip north featured a lot of what the Adirondacks are known for—varied climbing, easy approaches (ten minutes walk gets you to the base of a lot of area classics), cold weather (17 below one morning), the skill and charm of Rock and River guides, lots of fat ice, and at least one fat climber.

A screw and tool

would you trust your life to this?

An equalized anchor

Jeff Lowe invented these, called tricams

A full rack of gear

A hexcentric. Sometimes there are dry cracks near ice routes

We spent our time around Chapel Pond, an area with classic routes like Chouinard’s Gully, Power Play, and Big Brother (the latter route’s first ascent was on New Year’s Day 1984). Area guidebooks, including one written by Don Mellor, list more than 1500 routes in the Adirondacks, so there’s a lot to choose from.

Souzz is apparently an “autumn”

Lions on the Beach

First pitch, Roaring Brook Falls

Kai on Whales in the Jungle

TimO up high on Central Pillar

Central Pillar of Pitchoff

Unexpected Pleasure, on Knob Lock Mountain

A short approach to Chapel Pond Canyon

Pretty sloppy with the straps…

Power Play, in Chapel Pond

Pulling an overhang at Right of Pitchoff, Cascade Pass

Souzz getting it done on Lions on the Beach

Chapel pond

From the early days…ice looks the same

Dogleg, first pitch

Back in the day, the ‘dacks was a somewhat overlooked climbing destination. But then some high profile visitors and a 1995 Climbing Magazine feature kind of blew the cover off of the place. That article, combined with a winter festival calledMountainfest,established the area as a regular stop for both weekenders and visiting stars. Generational talents like Jeff Lowe, Alex Lowe, Will Gadd, and Mark Synnott all have spent time around Keene, and you never know whom you might see on the cliffs.

The visiting stars have put up some visionary routes, but the R&R crew has put up its share of routes, too. An Underwood Canyon Matt Horner classic called “CFD” comes to mind. There’s also an aptly named (but otherwise unremarkable) Don Mellor route at Chapel Pond called “Full Court Press.”

Justin on CFD

Power Play Wall, Chapel Pond

1993, looking younger

Don leads Full Court Press

One morning back in the mid-1990s, I sat at the Rock and River breakfast table next to a 40-something guy and confidently waded into a debate about avalanche safety. While I was making what I thought was a key point, I noticed that my new friend’s knuckles were red and swollen–a telltale sign of a serious climber (back before tools with curved shafts). At some point I realized that I was basically arguing withJeff Lowe, perhaps the best alpinist of his generation.

If I’d climbed a new route that day, I’d have wanted to call it “Unguided Breakfast.”